410 FISHES. 



made for the purpose. As already mentioned, reddish spots 

 and lines make their appearance after the fish has been 

 some time in fresh water, and it is also noticed that the 

 steel blue of the fresh-run fish becomes much dulled under 

 the same influence. Although these fish spend a consider- 

 able portion of the year in salt water, being in fact re- 

 garded by many as sea-fish, it is interesting to learn that 

 fish-culturists have succeeded in hatching the spawn of 

 land-locked salmon, the product being fertile. Of the 

 food of the salmon, either in fresh or salt water, little 

 seems to have been satisfactorily ascertained. It is thought 

 by some not to feed very much during its stay in rivers ; 

 but this view is not easily reconciled with the greediness 

 with which the fish will seize a mass of fur and feather 

 that bears no resemblance to any living creature. Besides 

 the attacks of a grey fungus, saprolegnia, which breaks 

 out in patches on the adipose fin and body, there is a 

 high rate of mortality among the kelts after the first 

 spa^vning. 



Salmon - fishing, with both net and rod, is subject to 

 rigorous legislation, there being a close -time on most 

 rivers of at least three months in the year, and of forty- 

 eight hours each week during the fishing. The Tweed 

 closes for only two months and a-half. 



The common brown Trout of our rivers, which is re- 

 garded by many as no more than a variety of the salmon, 



- is a familiar form, its colour being silvery 

 * Trout . ' 



green or brown with spots, some X-shaped, 



l^ut mostly circular, of black or red. In colour, as in 



size, however, the trout is subject to greater variety 



than perhaps any other fish. The famous Thames trout 



grows to a weight of nearly 20 lbs., but the average from 



most rivers may be placed at about i^ lb., a fish of 5 lbs. 



being excei^tional. The trout is a long-lived fish. Its 



food consists of small fishes and different stages of insect 



life; it roots up the larvae, and rises at the fly. It spawns 



